DIY Portable Surfing Shower

A friend of mine suggested that I make a craft that is a DIY of a portable surf shower, which I thought was a fantastic idea. There are some great ones out there made just for surfing, but they can get pricey. But, if you have some tools and free time, try this.First, I purchased a 2 gallon garden weed sprayer. PURCHASE this NEW or use one that hasn’t seen chemicals inside or you may get more of a glow than from your fabulous suntan. I picked up this 2 gallon sprayer for $15 at the local big box, but it’s actually made in the USA!

The bug sprayer I started with

It’s actually pretty nice, and could be used as a rinser straight out of the box, but the suggestion was to make something that could really get sand and especially mud and grass off you and your board if you went on the SUP in the river. The current set up didn’t cut it. The spray was intended to gently mist plants, so it was pretty weak, and the hose and attachments just didn’t have the inner diameter size needed to bring up more water quicker, and the hose wasn’t long enough.

To remedy this, there was a piece of tubing in the garage that had a perfect inside diameter, but didn’t fit over the outlet sticking out the top side of the tank where the hose attaches. An adapter was needed to fit a bigger dip tube (the straw inside the tank that sucks the water down) through this port, then attach to this bigger tubing. We also had an old one of those in the garage.

This part is tricky since it’s plastic, so keeping a tight grip is important and make sure you get rid of the plastic shavins’ left behind.

Next, I used a tap to make new threads inside the enlarged port so it would fit our new fitting. Be slow and deliberate when doing this part!

We drilled out the port with a 7/16″ bit to increase the opening

With the tap

The tap used was the same that would be used on metal pipe, but worked on the plastic since the port had a crazy thick wall to work with.
YAY!

For the dip tube into the tank, we used an old toilet tube (NO, it did NOT see action) that had the inner diameter needed.

I cut the tube to length, but it didn’t quite fit into the threaded inner diameter of the fitting going into the tank port. So, I filed. And filed. And filed some more.

It fit! Next, it was a matter of getting a good hose sprayer that fit our new hose tube, using a pair of hose clamps on each end of the tube to make sure we had a good seal, and voila!, here’s the port-o-shower.

To insulate this, I would have sewed a big Koozie to go around the tank, but we’re fresh out of old wetsuits. So, I used some super chunky acrylic yarn, an “I” size crochet hook, and crocheted a sweater for it to keep it insulated.

Portable Surf Shower with a Cozy

If you wanted to keep the water cool in the Summer, add a whole bunch of ice cubes, they’ll melt in the tank while in the car, but still keep the water cold.

The water now comes out of the tank like from a hose, but of course, the trade off is the water draws down quicker. If you go through a lot of water, keep some back up recycled 2 liters, but you’ll have a shower with good pressure, so you won’t look like this. They surf better than me. Jerks.